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Old 08-07-2006, 08:37 PM   #1
Archaea
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Default My beef with evangelicals

are essentially threefold.

First, they present themselves poorly in the national debate. With Jerry Falwell, Tammy Baker and the like as your spokepersons, you start to lose credibility out of the shoot.

Second, their overemphasis on grace, which in my mind dilutes the necessity to obey the commandments and to repent. Based on some data, I see little empirical evidence that evangelicals take their proclamations to heart. It seems to more cultural, more political, than a religion of convictions. That may sound odd given how much time some of them waste on anti-abortion efforts, but I'm stating how much emotion somebody invests, but how much conviction to the point of action in furtherance of self-discipline.

Third, the lack of a culture which assimilates and explains. The Catholics, the Jews, and even the Muslim to some extent, possess a culture, and academics that examine the world and the world of philosophy from their viewpoints. To a large extent, evangelicals eschew academic explanation. It can never be a substitute for conviction, but the absence thereof also points to an absence of substance.

You may have different experiences, but mine with evangelicals have been uniformly negative.

Many of the oppositions to the Church building temples have come from the evangelicals.

Much of interdenominational bigotry is sponsored by evangelicals.

It doesn't appear to be a living breathing religion. It's almost as if it's more political dogma than way of life. Feel free to disagree, because obviously some of my words are intended to be caricatures of caricatures.
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